Carignan signs minor-league deal with Giants

NORWICH — His career has been marred with untimely injuries and bad breaks, but Andrew Carignan received a gift of good news in time for the holiday season.

Carignan, a 2004 Norwich Free Academy graduate and former Oakland Athletics reliever, announced Wednesday via Twitter that he signed a minor-league contract with the San Francisco Giants.

“I’m really excited, I’m just looking for an opportunity to get out there,” Carignan said via telephone Thursday. “It’s been a rough couple years with those injuries and the rehab. I was a free agent after last year so I was looking for an opportunity and the Giants came and gave me one.”

Overcoming injuries

Carignan underwent Tommy John Surgery in the summer of 2012 after tearing a ligament in his throwing elbow. As he rehabbed the injury, he noticed something wasn’t right with his throwing shoulder and that resulted in a July shoulder surgery (right labrum).

“The elbow felt great the whole time coming back, and then all the sudden the shoulder popped up out of nowhere,” said Carignan who also had surgery in 2010 to remove bone fragments from his elbow.

The injury history prompted the Giants to request medicals records before making an offer to Carignan’s agent. But you can hear it in his voice — none of that matters anymore — because folks in San Francisco are taking a chance on him.

“It’s been a long time coming, so I’m pretty pumped up about it,” Carignan said. “I feel great. Coming off of two fairly significant injuries, but I’ve put in the time and work for a long time it feels like, so I finally have a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Good spirits

And for the confident Carignan, that light is shining brighter than Foxwoods from Route 2.

“(Health-wise) I’m right where I would be...Probably a little ahead of where I would be throwing if I (wasn’t injured)” he said. “I’m going out to camp early and getting out there and I’m well on my way to being back on the mound.”

Carignan, who has been living in the area while rehabbing in Niantic and Woburn, Mass., will head out to Arizona the first week of January.

“Nothing is guaranteed,” Carignan acknowledged. “I can get cut at any time. I have to show them what I can do.”

Carignan, who is 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA in 16 big-league innings, will begin the year in minor league camp and how he performs will dictate what happens next. The Giants’ Triple-A affiliate in Fresno, Calif. and their Double-A club in Richmond, Va. are potential landing spots.

“I would imgine it would be Triple-A,” Carignan said. “If anything goes wrong with my arm or I’m struggling maybe Double-A, but that comes down to how I’m looking and throwing in camp.”

Local connection

If Carignan’s journey includes an appearance with the Giants, he’ll join bench coach and Colchester native Ron Wotus, another former Eastern Connecticut Conference star. The two first met at a Mohegan Sun baseball convention a few years ago.

“It’s always good to have a familiar face,” Carignan said. “I’ve met him a couple times and maybe naturally he’ll be in my corner a little bit because we’re from the same area.”

The line in Carignan’s corner is long. Within hours of announcing the news on social network sites, Carignan was smothered with more than 70 Twitter “re-tweets” and more than 150 Facebook likes or comments.

“It definitely helps, there’s a lot of people in my corner,” Carignan said. “People were excited when I was up there (in Oakland) and then it kind of got ripped away from me for a couple years, and I’m just really excited to get back out there and all the people who have known me my whole life are just as excited to get me out there.”